Chinook's Edge School Division is expecting more students to ride the bus within town boundaries during the upcoming school year.
“There's more students riding the urban shuttle bus now, and our budget doesn't allow for us to add an additional route service in the town of Olds, so now we have to take our busing in the town of Olds and actually do the loop around the town twice,” said Patty Thompson, assistant director of transportation for CESD.
Thompson said it's estimated that the 320 students that rode the bus in town in 2012-13 will increase by 10 to 15 per cent this year. 190 students are registered for the urban shuttle thus far for 2013-14.
Fees for urban bussing in Olds will increase slightly to $130 per student for the year, up from $110 per student last year. Thompson said the increase is due to rising fuel costs and the fact that the provincial government is no longer providing school divisions with contingency funding in the event of fuel price spikes.
The school division's transportation budget will stay roughly the same this upcoming year as 2012-13. The division ran 11 routes in the rural areas around Olds at a cost of about $550,000, plus another $120,000 for urban routes in 2012-13.
